The winning entry was a series of book covers created for the Italian language editions of the German-born American writer Charles Bukowski’s novels, poetry and short stories published by Feltrinelli, nine titles illustrated so far. Bukowski, famed for his gritty, explicit style of writing, depicted “a certain taboo male fantasy: the uninhibited bachelor, slobby, anti-social, and utterly free” said Michael Greenberg of The Boston Review. The illustrations I created needed to communicate both the titles and Bukowski himself.

In a first place I was a bit confused by all this flesh and naked bodies and alcohol. Scared about the irriverence toward life, women and himself that Bukowski had...than I got It was just his personal way to despertely love our world, an emotion so intense that it was the only way he knew to manage it.